White House chief of staff Susie Wiles says she has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump announces the creation of the U.S. strategic critical minerals reserve during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on February 02, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said Monday that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, which was detected early, and that she will continue to serve in her role while she undergoes treatment.
“I am grateful to have an outstanding team of doctors who detected the cancer early and are guiding my care, and I am encouraged by a strong prognosis,” Wiles said in a statement. “I am also deeply thankful for the support and encouragement of President Trump as I undergo treatment and continue serving in my role as White House Chief of Staff.”
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that while Wiles undergoes treatment, “she will be spending virtually full time at the White House, which makes me, as President, very happy!”
During an event at the White House on Monday, Trump praised his top aide, saying that she is an “amazing fighter” and will “take care of it immediately,” referring to her treatment.
“She just started actually, and she’s going to be a great shape,” Trump said of her treatment. “The prognosis there is excellent, beyond excellent.”
Wiles has served as the White House chief of staff since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
She didn’t offer any additional details about her prognosis or treatment plan.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women in the United States (excluding skin cancers). About 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer.
An estimated 321,910 females will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, the American Cancer Society estimates. An estimated 42,140 women will die.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) questions U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on February 11, 2026 in Washington, DC. Bondi is expected to face questions on her department’s handling of the files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump’s investigations into political foes and the handing of the two fatal ICE shootings of U.S. citizens. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of “spying” on her search history when the congresswoman visited the Department of Justice earlier this week to view unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files.
“It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files,” Jayapal said in a post on X. “Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched. That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members.”
Photos from a House Judiciary Committee hearing at which Bondi appeared on Wednesday show printouts she referenced were titled: “Jayapal Pramila Search History.”
A diagram on the page shows several documents from the DOJ’s Epstein files that Jayapal searched. File numbers and brief descriptions of the contents are shown, according to photos taken of Bondi’s document.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in a statement that he plans to ask the DOJ’s inspector general to launch an inquiry into whether the DOJ monitored lawmakers’ search history while reviewing the Epstein files.
“It is an outrage that DOJ is tracking Members’ investigative steps undertaken to ensure that DOJ is complying with the Epstein File Transparency Act and using this information for the Attorney General’s embarrassing polemical purposes. DOJ must immediately cease tracking any Members’ searches,” Raskin said.
At the outset of Wednesday’s hearing, Raskin used his opening statement to condemn Bondi’s use of a so-called “burn book” to prepare attacks against Democratic members.
“We saw your performance in the Senate and we are not going to accept that,” Raskin warned. “This isn’t a game. In the Senate you brought something with you called a burn book, a binder of smears to attack members personally for doing the people’s work of oversight. Please, set the burn book aside and answer questions.”
Those comments came as Raskin opened Wednesday’s combative hearing, where Bondi sparred with lawmakers, traded insults with them and at times refused to answer their questions.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment.
Since Monday, lawmakers have been allowed to visit the DOJ to view unredacted Epstein files — which has prompted fierce backlash from lawmakers critical of redactions that were maintained by the Department in defiance of the Epstein Transparency Act, which only allowed redactions to protect victims and their personally identifiable data and information.
Another lawmaker who visited the secure facility at the Department of Justice to view the unredacted documents, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, said she believed the department was tracking her as she conducted her review on Wednesday.
“Yes. I will confirm. DOJ is tracking the Epstein documents Members of Congress search for, open, and review,” Mace posted on X. “I was able to navigate the system today and I won’t disclose how or the nature of how; but confirmed the DOJ is TAGGING ALL DOCUMENTS Members of Congress search, open and review. Based on how I confirmed this, there are timestamps associated with this tracking.”
President Donald Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump, signs the Fostering the Future executive order in the East Room of the White House, Nov. 13, 2025. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is urging states to stop removing children from their homes over gender-identity disputes at the behest of child welfare agencies without their parents’ approval.
In a letter first obtained by ABC News, the Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF) reminds state child welfare agencies that under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), they are barred from removing children from their home because a parent doesn’t agree with the child’s gender identity.
“When states overstep their bounds, ACF will take action to deter inappropriate policies that drive unnecessary interactions with child welfare systems. This is one such example,” ACF Assistant Secretary Alex Adams wrote in a statement Tuesday.
The Trump administration cited multiple examples — from Illinois to California — where children who may reject the sex they were assigned at birth and perceive themselves as a different gender were removed from their homes without parental consent and placed in the child welfare system.
However, Shannon Minter, vice president of legal at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), told ABC News that he is not aware of any state removing children from parents based on their response to a transgender child.
Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Minter called the effort a broader push by the Trump administration to “eliminate” all protections for transgender young people.
“No one is advocating for removing children because a parent is struggling to understand,” he said, adding, “But child welfare professionals need the discretion to assess when rejection crosses the line into real harm — the same way they would for any other child.”
Morissa Ladinsky, a clinical professor in pediatrics at Stanford University in California, argued that children aren’t typically removed from their home without parental consent in this fashion.
“My experience tells me that there is likely more to the story,” Ladinsky told ABC News, adding that she has not seen removal over gender disputes fall under the domain of Child Protective Services.
As the division of HHS that promotes welfare assistance and supports the economic and social well-being of children and families, the agency has said ACF’s duty is to protect families and keep them together. ACF’s letter also stressed that parents hold the right to refuse removal according to their religious beliefs and moral convictions around gender identity.
The letter said breaking the law could violate the First Amendment and states could risk losing federal grant funding under CAPTA.
“What we’re doing with this letter is we’re putting states on notice,” Adams told ABC News.
“When policies are either increasing the number of kids committed to the system inappropriately or they’re deterring foster families from stepping up, I do think there was a role for ACF to weigh in,” he said, adding, “It does merit federal action.”
The letter to states bolsters an initiative to protect children from the foster-care system amid a shortage of facilities nationwide with only 57 foster homes for every 100 vulnerable kids coming into the system, according to Adams.
The letter comes at the directive of President Donald Trump’s Fostering the Future for American Children and Families executive order and follows the president’s call during his State of the Union address last week for a federal ban on gender transitions for minors.
“Surely, we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said during his address. “We must ban it and we must ban it immediately.”
Gender identity is described as how a child perceives and calls themself, which can be the same or different from the sex that was assigned to them at birth, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
However, if a child sees themself as different than the sex assigned at birth, parents have the right to reject this self-identification, the ACF letter says. Under federal law, CAPTA states that a child may not be removed from the home without proof of “abuse” or “imminent risk of harm.”
The Trump administration has stated that restoring power to parents is one of its top health, education and humanities priorities. But the letter warns that states are usurping parental rights and potentially misinterpreting the CAPTA law if they remove children from their homes without evidence of “abuse or neglect.”
Under ACF, the health department’s human services division administers the largest federal child care program and other federal services that helps millions of households nationwide.
Prior to ACF’s letter to states, lawmakers have taken several child care-related actions against the nation’s health agency under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a previous letter to Kennedy first reported by ABC News, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other congressional Democrats said the agency’s alleged “disregard” for child welfare undermines the government’s core child-protection obligations amid federal immigration crackdowns.
Adams stressed Tuesday’s letter is supported by the whole organization, including Kennedy, and the secretary has demonstrated his commitment to improving child welfare outcomes across several different domains.
A 31-page report on the White House ballroom submitted to the panels reviewing the project show the proposed addition to the White House from additional angles and features new renderings of the project. Commission of Fine Arts
(WASHINGTON) — More renderings of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom were made available in a 31-page report submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts, which is set to meet on Thursday.
The report showed the proposed 90,000-square-foot addition in the location of the demolished East Wing from several new angles, including the view from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Commission of Fine Arts was formed by Congress as an independent agency to weigh in on major capital-area building projects.
Thursday’s meeting, which will take place via videoconference, will feature new members recently appointed by Trump after the president dismissed all six of its members last fall.
The new members include James McCrery, the architect who previously led the ballroom project before being replaced; Roger Kimball, a critic and conservative columnist for The Spectator who has written favorably about the president; and Chamberlain Harris, a 26-year-old White House Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations who worked in the first Trump White House.
In a statement to ABC News, the White House called Harris a “loyal, trusted, and highly respected advisor to President Trump” who will be “a tremendous asset to the Commission of Fine Arts.”
“She understands the President’s vision and appreciation of the arts like very few others, and brings a unique perspective that will serve the Commission well,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in the statement.
The commission wrote on its website that “upon the completion of President Donald J. Trump’s first term, [Harris] continued her work in Florida at the Office of the 45th President, managing President Trump’s Presidential Portrait Project in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the White House Historical Association.”
The Commission of Fine Arts is one of two panels tasked with reviewing projects in Washington. The report was also submitted with the National Capital Planning Commission ahead of its March meeting.
The administration has faced legal pressure to submit the plans to both panels for review after the initial demolition of the East Wing.
The White House first announced the ballroom construction project, a longtime goal of Trump, last July.
Trump at first said the project would not interfere with the existing White House structure. But then in October, the entire East Wing was razed to make way for the ballroom, which Trump said would cost $400 million.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to stop the project. The judge in the case has expressed skepticism of the government’s arguments that the president has the power to build a ballroom with private donations and without express authorization from Congress, and said he hoped to issue a decision this month.
